he voted against the debt ceiling i believe in 2006. why all of a sudden does he not want have to have negotiations? >> i think will's happened, larry, is that the president spent 2011 and 2012 with republicans squeezing him on his priorities, having opposed him during the first two years of his presidency. then that really had the wind at their back. the tea party election of 2010 had given republicans very big numbers on the hill. and he's decided that he backed up, and he backed up and he backed up, and he's not going to back up anymore. he took his argument to the american people in the election. he won the election. they held the house, that is true. but he's decided that he's been vindicated by public opinion broadly, and he's going to try to hold that ground. the question is going to be, larry, at the end of the year on the tax issue, he had the hammer behind him of the expiration of all the bush tax cuts. he does not have that hammer right now. what he has is the prospect of a catastrophic standoff between republicans and democr